Antony Sheriff grew up in New York as a car-obsessed youngster whose passions originally gravitated toward styling. In fact, one of his renderings earned him third-place in a 1984 Autoweek design contest. He later consulted for automakers and suppliers before spending eight years at Fiat in Turin, Italy. But his ultimate role as managing director of McLaren Automotive proved to be a vast departure from his job at the Italian giant.

The transition almost never came about.

In 2003, Sheriff received a phone call offering an opportunity to run “a small British sports-car company.” Envisioning a scrappy kit-car outfit, he nearly ended the conversation before inquiring as to who was calling. When the voice on the other side said “McLaren,” Sheriff recalls thinking, “No, no, don't hang up the phone!”

Reporting to famously fussy executive chairman Ron Dennis surely requires a strong stomach. And managing the development, production and sales aspects of McLaren's road-car business presents issues not typically seen at other companies. He has to rein in some engineers—many of whom come from the Formula One division—who aren't content to stop at technical perfection. Virtually every aspect of McLaren Automotive is touched by Sheriff, and it's almost easier to cover what he doesn't do at the boutique firm. He ensures that production cars achieve their performance targets, come to market under time and budget constraints and meet stringent quality-control standards once they roll off the assembly line.

Sheriff also stewards the creation of a worldwide dealer network and is forging an infrastructure that ensures customer satisfaction. “Funnily enough,” he says of the high-end car-buying experience, “when you purchase a super-luxury car, you often don't get the sort of service commensurate with the price you pay.”

Sheriff's personal vehicles more reflect his place of employment than one might think: He describes both his Lotus Elan drophead and 1967 Mini Cooper S as “marvels of packaging and efficiency, which our car is as well.”

“It's about shaving everything that's not necessary, and it's no different than in a 600-hp supercar.”

That speed demon is the MP4-12C. Priced at nearly a quarter of a million dollars, it's the company's first road-going model since the Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR. Perhaps more significant, the MP4-12C is the beginning of a series of street-legal supercars that promise to drastically disrupt the exotic performance establishment, backed up by a factory in Woking, England, and 35 worldwide dealerships.

As for future offerings, Sheriff plays his cards close but acknowledges that the MP4-12C will serve as a sort of middle model, raising the question: Will we see a fresh incarnation of the mind-blowing F1?

“It would be silly not to do a very low-volume, very expensive sports car,” he admits. “Is it the new McLaren F1? No. The F1 is what it is. . . . What we do in the future is going to have many more dimensions than the F1. I'm not going to talk about what those dimensions are, but one thing is for sure: The driving experience and level of performance are going to be staggering.”